That Time We Played Exploding Snap (or Harry's First Word)
by lovebirdy
Summary: Could be canon, takes place during OOtP, a cute drabble about one lazy afternoon they take off from cleaning. Inspired by a tumblr text post by punkrockbadger, who seems to have deleted their tumblr. Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Sirius, Remus, and a little Molly. Please review if you like it!


Takes place during the summer of Order of the Phoenix, inspired by a textpost by punkrockbadger that reads:

"harry says "moomy" as his first "word" and lily and remus spend an hour staring at each other across the kitchen table in complete silence eventually, remus is just like "i'm _sure_ he said mummy" and lily's like "no, moony, he said your name" and they get all sweet and friendly about how much harry loves them both james mutters that he's pretty sure harry said poopy and gets tackled"

I'm supposed to be writing a research paper, studying for an exam, and revising fiction for publication...but this is what I spent the last hour on instead. I hope you like it! All mistakes are due to sleeplessness and stress, I'll probably edit this a little later.

* * *

Harry had just begun to settle into life at Grimmauld place. It was certainly better than being at the Dursley's, but he still felt useless and like he was being treated like a child. He had faced Voldemort more times than just about anyone, besides Dumbledore probably. It was maddening! But, three square meals (and snacks!) cooked by the masterful Mrs. Weasley, his friends, and his Godfather helped make up for it. They had taken the afternoon off from cleaning—Mrs. Weasley was busy ferreting out the twin's product caches—and he, Hermione, Ginny, Ron, Sirius, and Remus were playing a large, mega game of exploding snap.

Though they had just had some sandwiches that he and Sirius scrounged up from the kitchen, just as Ron was placing his last card on the elaborate castle they had constructed, his stomach growled. And growled. And gurgled, a little. It was enough to cause Ron to be too hasty, and all their hard work blew up in their faces. Ginny, Hermione, and Remus had been smart enough to stay back, but Harry and Sirius were so invested in what they were doing, they got more of it than Ron.

"Ron! I can't believe you! Bloody hell, I think I lost an eyebrow!" Harry was rubbing at his smarting skin, and thanking his lucky stars that he wears glasses.

"Yeah, I think you did. And look, Sirius's beard is singed off!" Ginny pointed at the half-bare side of Sirius's face.

"Oh no, it is? IT IS! Merlin's saggy left—!"

"SIRIUS! That's NOT appropriate! It grows back, just because you want to look like a rouge—" Remus was waving his wand over them both, healing their burns.

"Goodness Ronald! We _just_ ate, honestly!" Hermione yelled at Ron, rolling her eyes.

"Good going Ron, really excellent strategy right there, I'm impressed, amazed actually." Ginny clapped him on the back, laughing loudly.

Ron look suitably embarrassed, his ear the tell-tale shade of Weasley crimson.

"I'm a growing boy! Those sandwiches were rubbish and I only got two."

"More like three, with the bits you stole off everyone else's!"

"Well Mum always makes me three or four!"

"I don't know why you're not as big as a house with the way you eat."

"I just have a big appetite; Mum's always said that my first word was 'Hungry!'"

"That wouldn't surprise me." Remus said, mildly.

"No, I'm fairly sure that your first word was 'git', since that's what you are."

"Then what was yours? Goody two-shoes?"

"That's three words, for Merlin's sakes, you can't even count!"

Hermione could see the sibling spat quickly spiraling out of control, "Well my first word was 'Please'. I started speaking when I was about eight months. What about you Professor Lupin?"

Remus, who cottoned on pretty quick, said "Oh I believe my first word was something about not wanting to go to bed when I was supposed to. I didn't talk at all until I was nearly two, so I didn't really have a first word per say, it was a sentence."

"Well my first word was 'Bill,' he's always been my favorite brother. He babysat me a lot when I was little."

Sirius grinned at Ginny, "Well, I started out with the names of the house-elves. Really drove my mum mad, because they were obligated to obey me, as the Black heir, so they had to interpret my cries and gestures as if they were commands. I think my dad thought it was funny, because he never did anything about it."

They all laughed and smiled at Sirius's story, but Harry's smile didn't quite touch his eyes. Hermione had saved them from a Weasley row, but with a topic that was sore for Harry. There was an awkward silence as everyone sort of realized the same thing, then Remus said,

"Harry, your first word was my name actually. Well, it was most likely my name. You said something that sounded an awful lot like 'Moony', but since your vocal mastery of the English language wasn't the best yet, it was hard to make out. D'you remember, Sirius?"

"Oh yeah, you and Lils couldn't decide if he had said 'Moony' or 'Mummy', and Prongs was devastated, because he was convinced that your first word would be 'Daddy'. He'd actually even made a bet with Lils over it."

"Really?" Harry asked, a faint smile on his face.

"Yeah. All your milestones were celebrated, Lily had bought a muggle chart that she hung in your room to document them all. You threw up on it at least once that I know of."

"He peed on it as well. I don't know what she was thinking, hanging it right by the changing table." Sirius said.

They all broke out into laughter, "Should there be, charms or something, for that sort of problem?" Hermione asked, giggling.

"Oh I'm sure there are, but Lily and James didn't exactly have any wizarding parents around to give them advice or anything. And Lily wanted to do as much as possible the muggle way, she thought magic was cheating for some reason." Sirius told Hermione, shrugging.

"Ha! You actually believed all that, Padfoot? I hope you know, she Vanished many a nappy's contents when she thought no one was looking." Remus informed Sirius.

"She did? But—! I—! I hand washed dirty nappies for her! No, disposable ones weren't good enough for bloody Harry James Potter, he had to have cloth ones! That I hand washed!" Sirius was at a loss for words—apparently the nappies had been pretty bad.

The awkward mood had been completely broken, and they spent the rest of their free afternoon telling stories of when they were kids, Remus and Sirius trying to fill Harry in on as much as possible.

"You HATED green beans, Merlin's pants the mess you could make when confronted with that green slime."

"I still hate them! Nasty things!"

"None of us slept for that first month, I think. You were a bit premature, you know, and we were all terrified about how delicate you were. Lily was actually the most calm of us, she knew you were going to be fine, mothers instinct and all that."

"I can't count the number of times you slept with me while I was Padfoot, you used to pull my tail whenever you wanted a ride, or when you were hungry, really just for the hell of it. You were a brat, you know that?"

"Remember when Harry tried to walk down the stairs by himself and James nearly had a heart attack? I know he says he got something in his eye, but he was crying he had been so worried."

"You thought that was bad? Remember when Harry got ahold of Peter's wand? And then Lily cursed Peter with something, and neither of them would ever say what it was? He limped for a week though."

"But the best was when he made that huge mess with his birthday cake, and fell asleep in the middle of the party. Probably thirty people came to see him, and he passed out before the presents!"

Harry soaked it all in, as did his friends. It was rare that Harry's childhood was even brought up, much less discussed. Though they didn't know it, Molly heard most of the conversation. She had come to admonish them to get back to work, but couldn't bring herself to interrupt the conversation, so she sat out in the hall, clutching her handkerchief and thanking the universe that she got to raise all of her children, hear their every first word, and see their every first step.

Finally, the conversation wound down for dinner, with Ron's stomach growling it was hard to talk anyway. As they left the room, Sirius pulled Harry aside, and told him in a whisper, "Your real first word was 'Sirius', but I didn't want to disappoint James. I kept trying to get you to say 'Dad', but you struggled with the letter 'd' pretty badly. You weren't so good at 'p's either."

Harry laughed, unsure if he should believe him. Yeah, Grimmauld Place wasn't so bad after all.


End file.
